


Intrigue

by standbygo



Series: NaNoWriMo 2013 One Word Prompt Challenge [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Meetings, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-23
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2018-01-02 09:43:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1055293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/standbygo/pseuds/standbygo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An object in motion tends to stay in motion, and Sherlock is an impatient, impetuous man, single minded when it comes to mysteries and crime scenes. He ran out the door, adjusting his scarf, and then stopped on the stairs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intrigue

**Author's Note:**

> NaNoWriMo One Word Prompt Challenge - "Intrigue" from Linda.

“Don’t wait up, Mrs. Hudson!” and Sherlock whirled out the door. 

An object in motion tends to stay in motion, and Sherlock is an impatient, impetuous man, single minded when it comes to mysteries and crime scenes. He ran out the door, adjusting his scarf, and then stopped on the stairs. 

He stopped, and wondered why he had stopped. An idea stepped into his head on the ninth stair and stopped his reciprocal motion. He turned around and returned to the sitting room, and said, “… You’re a doctor.”

For many years afterwards, Sherlock wondered why he had stopped and turned around. He had known John Watson for less than twenty four hours, spoken barely a hundred words with him, and yet the thought of inviting him to the crime scene had halted him unexpectedly. 

He was intrigued by the army doctor with the cane. 

John was not a particularly striking man; an ordinary man, the kind of man one’s eye would slide over when passing on the street. Later Sherlock would learn how interesting and intelligent he was; at first the realization was grudgingly made, then accepted with delighted surprise. But at that moment, John had done nothing to indicate his intelligence except for challenge Sherlock on the content of his website with a cocked eyebrow.

And yet, Sherlock was intrigued enough to stop in his tracks. Unprecedented. 

And he continues to be intrigued, day by day.

+

John remembered sitting in his bedsit, worrying the head of his cane, watching the clock creep closer to 7:00pm, trying to decide whether to go to look at the flat.

A chance meeting in a park, and a bizarre episode in the lab, and he was contemplating looking at a flat and moving in with a man he barely knew.  He had stood there uncomfortably while the strange, alien looking bloke had washed words over his head and by the time he had left with a wink and a swirl of his coat John had felt half drowned and confused as all hell.  And Mike had said, “Yup – he’s always like that,” which was not reassuring at all.

And yet John had risen from his chair, put on his coat and left the bedsit and walked to the Tube, wondering with every step why he was doing this.

John was intrigued. 

_He’ll probably not be there_ , he had thought. _He’ll stand you up and you’ll be out on the other side of London feeling ridiculous. Or he_ will _meet you and not remember you. Or he will remember you and lead you to a dark alley and slit your throat and wink at you while you bleed out_. The potential scenarios became more and more dire with every step. 

And yet he kept going, arriving at 221B Baker just as Sherlock emerged from a cab with yet another dramatic swirl of his coat. 

_Hang on, I’m the one with the cane, and I’m walking, and_ he _takes a cab?_ John thought.

And yet John extended his hand to him, Sherlock offered the use of his first name, John met Mrs. Hudson and entered the flat that felt like home immediately. 

And fifteen minutes later Sherlock invited him to go to a crime scene, and John responded as a man dying of thirst reacts to the offer of water. Fifteen minutes after that Sherlock was spinning out John’s life story, dictated to him by a brief glance at his mobile.

John’s intrigue multiplied, span up and around his head and never stopped.

+

One man stops on the stairs, and turns around. 

Another man puts on his coat and leaves his bedsit.

Two men’s lives put together through a chance meeting, random words, an offer accepted, which led to a friendship that neither of them could have imagined. 

Intriguing, isn’t it?

 


End file.
